Category: Common Problems ¤
Author: Victoria Farrington ¤
Title: Introducing Kids and Dogs ¤
Subject: clicktrain=> kids and dogs
Barb asked for other ideas on introducing a dog to the wild world
of kids. I'm assuming that because this is a first grandchild
(congrats!), the baby won't be living with you and may come and go at
stages of development that may surprise the dogs--whoah--now it crawls,
now it has wheels, now it walks...It surprised me, too, at how fast
babies change. Most of these ideas are things some people do with all
dogs and but everyone in my family did with the belief that the dogs'
behaviors had to hold up when, oh, a 2 year old is rolling on the floor
with an ice cream bar or a toddler has its fingers caught in their beard
hair.
Without kids:
Intense but no stress games of take and leave. My dogs LOVE to
hear the words Leave, Off, and Here. That means I'll be offering really
cool stuff some time in the near future. And because we've done so much
practice when it didni't really matter, I've never said NO, Unh-uh or
sounded tense about it. (You can easily freak out dog and child by
getting nervous.) I started with the basic food in one hand and asking
for backing up, then c/t. I kept at this until I could put a long delay
between the Leave and the c/t--I went and got other good stuff. So they
don't have to see something in my hand to leave what I'm asking them to
leave. Then I put food on my knee, in a bowl on a chair, and on the
floor. I started with pretty unattractive food--orange segments, potato
peels, and carrots (which disgust my dogs). If they went for the food,
so what. It was yucky stuff. Pretty soon they were less likely to
pounce on goodies and they'd give me a chance to c/t for directing their
attention to me. A target stick can also help: put a potato peel on the
floor about a foot from the dog and as it moves toward the peel, slide
the target stick in front of it. Even if the dog accidentally bumps the
target stick, c/t and make the treat something yummy. When I started
using good food, my dogs got a few freebies but if they backed away from
it, they got jackpot good food and this worked well. One gives me about
20 seconds before she goes for the goodie on the floor, the others are
more stoic and one will even bark to show me how good he is. By the time
the food is on the hands, face or tray of a baby, the dog has had plenty
of practice and knows how it all works.
When you start with the kids' food, hold the baby's hand in your hand so
there's no confusion for the dog. I did this when my first niece was
actually asleep, just stuck a weiner slice in her little hand and quietly
played leave and take with the dogs, always tossing the treat away from
her.
Do the same thing with toys. My brother taught his boisterous dogs a
special toy cue by holding a toy in his hand and doing a version of take
and leave--unless he said "catch," he'd withdraw the toy. Then he put it
on the floor or a chair seat and did the same thing. Then he did it with
his new baby when he was fully in control of what happened between the
baby and the dogs. His dogs will lie down and whine in front of his
little boy, begging to hear "catch" but they don't grab and they don't
run around collecting baby toys that look like dog toys.
One of my dogs loves squeaky toys. I taught him they'd never ever be
delivered unless his butt is on the ground and we practice this almost
daily because if I get lax it's not a big deal if he grabs from me or my
husband but 30 lbs. of grabby terrier can frighten and injure a child who
picks up the wrong thing.
Babies come with a lot of stuff that can scare and attract dogs. Before
ours saw the stuff WITH the kids, they saw a lot of the stuff WITHOUT the
kids. Things like bottles, disposable diapers, diaper bags, loud toys,
those contraptions on wheels that babies push themselves around in--these
make a racket on tile or wooden floors, babies move at the speed of
NASCAR drivers in them and paws get run over. It's better if you scare
the daylight out of your dogs with one and teach them how and where to
run from it before the baby does. My brother and his wife are
conscientious at introducing all their child's toys to the dogs before
the child gets them--as the kids get older, their stuff gets weirder and
weirder: electronic toys, bears that sing, trucks with sirens, big wheels
and bikes with training wheels, the dreaded Barbie car. Some of their
stuff gets smaller and smaller so it's probably a good idea to teach your
dogs to leave or retrieve tiny objects like Lego blocks, crayons, and
doll shoes. (One of my dogs ate many of these things. Now there's only
the occasional gulp...whoops.)
In your house or when visiting, teach your dogs how to escape from kids.
Even that it's OKAY to escape. SOme dogs don't mind and some are martyrs
but some need help in finding the way out. My poor grandmother spent
years teaching her Bedlingtons to NOT treat her furniture like an Alpine
adventure. Greatgrandchildren and there she was encouraging the dogs to
leap up on couchs. In my parents' house, the baby gates are for the
babies. The dogs have been taught to jump over them. We showed Dash he
could fit under the bed just by tossing a treat under there and sending
him after it. Something big to get under or behind is a good idea
because the dog can move away from little hands reaching for it.
For the same reason, I close the doors of the dogs' crates when kids are
visiting. The crates are for privacy. I've occasionally dragged my dogs
out of a crate but I don't know if they'd let a 3 yr. do this without
some kind of struggle. I also don't know what they'd do if someone tried
to get in there with them. (And gee, I don't fit.)
Do lots of Excite/settle games. Get down on the floors (knees
permitting) and do some hair pulling and eye poking. Better you get a
nip than a baby does. I've found that roughhousing pretty much takes
care of the problem--dogs are good at recognizing "just in fun" but they
do need to learn to pull their punches even in fun.
Read Shirley CHong's terrific posts on bite inhibition. So if things do
get ugly, the dog has had plenty of practice. My brother got his dogs
well rehearsed, got very rough with them at times, even annoyed them.
Then he taught them to mouth his little boy's arms. Two of his dogs are
AIredales, his child is far rougher than any dog I've ever known and he
figured that if the dogs learned an acceptable way to grab Brian, they
would at least start with that and give him time to intervene. Whether
they were playing or getting ticked off. It seems to have worked. The
dogs actually prefer to just gallop off when Brian's too rough for them
but there have been some wrestling matches that ended with everyone
intact and confident.
Whew. SOunds like a lot but my dogs needed to learn these things just to
hang out with the other terriers in my family. And I consider them games
we can play all the time without the dogs getting the idea it's anything
important. When they started interacting with the kids, I tried to
transfer as much control as I could to the kids themselves--standing
behind them and holding a toy to teach the dog to back up, helping the
kids give cues and deliver food at the appropriate moment, playing games
with the kids and dogs and making sure I took the brunt of anyone's wild
moves. As the baby gets older, try to do things with the baby and the
dog that the dog enjoys--one of mine loves pulling a sled with a baby on
it, another enjoys trotting beside a stroller for a walk. It can be easy
to concentrate on the baby and end up with the dog having a boring or
miserable time. And provide plenty of escape and nap time. That's
always a nice alibi for those moments when YOU are exhausted and need a
nap yourself!
Oh, and don't forget little hats and little gloves. My mother had to put
a little hat on a large teddy bear to teach her dog he couldn't steal
those fun fuzzy things bobbing at eye level.
I was very apprehensive about my dogs and our nieces and nephews at first
but the only bad thing that's happened was the Christmas morning when
Dash mistook Holiday Barbie for a chew toy and decapitated her. There
were even more tears when Grandpa tried to be helpful and superglued
Barbie's head on backwards. (Satanic possession Barbie?) Any sticky
situations have ended peacefully I think because the dogs were
comfortable responding at some level to many of the physical situations
and objects.
And gee, have fun!
Sorry to go on so long,
Victoria Farrington
and the anti-terrorist squad terriers
Dash, Shiva and Fisticuffs